The thought sharpened his vision.  He saw a thin shadow a little darker than the gloom of the river; it grew into shape; something grated lightly upon sand and pebbles, and then he heard the guarded plash of feet in shallow water and saw some one pulling the canoe up higher.  A second figure joined the first.  They advanced a few paces and stopped.  In a moment a voice called softly,

“M’sieu!  M’sieu Carrigan!”

There was an anxious note in the voice, but Carrigan held his tongue.  And then he heard the woman say,

“It was here, Bateese!  I am sure of it!”

There was more than anxiety in her voice now.  Her words trembled with distress.  “Bateese—­if he is dead—­he is up there close to the trees.”

“But he isn’t dead,” said Carrigan, raising himself a little.  “He is here, behind the rock again!”

In a moment she had run to where he was lying, his hand clutching the cold barrel of the pistol which he had found in the sand, his white face looking up at her.  Again he found himself staring into the glow of her eyes, and in that pale light which precedes the coming of stars and moon the fancy struck him that she was lovelier than in the full radiance of the sun.  He heard a throbbing note in her throat.  And then she was down on her knees at his side, leaning close over him, her hands groping at his shoulders, her quick breath betraying how swiftly her heart was beating.

“You are not hurt—­badly?” she cried.

“I don’t know,” replied David.  “You made a perfect shot.  I think a part of my head is gone.  At least you’ve shot away my balance, because I can’t stand on my feet!”

Her hand touched his face, remaining there for an instant, and the palm of it pressed his forehead.  It was like the touch of cool velvet, he thought.  Then she called to the man named Bateese.  He made Carrigan think of a huge chimpanzee as he came near, because of the shortness of his body and the length of his arms.  In the half light he might have been a huge animal, a hulking creature of some sort walking upright.  Carrigan’s fingers closed more tightly on the butt of his automatic.  The woman began to talk swiftly in a patois of French and Cree.  David caught the gist of it.  She was telling Bateese to carry him to the canoe, and to be very careful, because m’sieu was badly hurt.  It was his head, she emphasized.  Bateese must be careful of his head.

David slipped his pistol into its holster as Bateese bent over him.  He tried to smile at the woman to thank her for her solicitude—­after having nearly killed him.  There was an increasing glow in the night, and he began to see her more plainly.  Out on the middle of the river was a silvery bar of light.  The moon was coming up, a little pale as yet, but triumphant in the fact that clouds had blotted out the sun an hour before his time.  Between this bar of light and himself he saw the head of Bateese.  It was a wild, savage-looking head, bound pirate-fashion round the forehead with a huge Hudson’s Bay kerchief.  Bateese might have been old Jack Ketch himself bending over to give the final twist to a victim’s neck.  His long arms slipped under David.  Gently and without effort he raised him to his feet.  And then, as easily as he might have lifted a child, he trundled him up in his arms and walked off with him over the sand.